Clear Admit: MBA Admissions Consultants Blog

APPLICANT RESOURCES

Have an iPhone or iPod Touch? Research schools on the go and keep your applications organized with Clear Admit's new MBA Planner App!

Admissions Director Q&A
Below are links to Clear Admit's exclusive interviews with MBA admissions directors at leading programs.
Dawna Clarke (Tuck)
Rose Martinelli (Chicago)
Judith Hodara (Wharton)
Sara Neher (Darden)
Soojin Kwon Koh (Michigan)
Randall Sawyer (Cornell)
Beth Flye (Kellogg)
David Simpson (LBS)
Liz Riley Hargrove (Duke)
Linda Meehan (Columbia)
Bruce DelMonico (Yale)
Peter Johnson (Berkeley)
Isser Gallogly (NYU)
Mae Jennifer Shores (UCLA)
J.J. Cutler (Wharton)
Jake Cohen (INSEAD)
Rod Garcia (MIT Sloan)
Mary Miller (Columbia)

Clear Admit School Guides
Become an expert on your target schools overnight! Get the program-specific details you need to craft essays that stand out. See how schools compare head-to-head in key areas like recruiting, curricular structure, elective offerings and more. Available for immediate download. As featured in the Economist.

Clear Admit Career Guides
Understand career-specific offerings at leading MBA programs and identify the schools that will best support your career goals with the Clear Admit Career Guides! Available for Consulting, Investment Banking, Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Healthcare.

Clear Admit Strategy Series
Craft a winning application with the Clear Admit Strategy Series! Step-by-Step guidance through the application process. Titles include a Resume Guide, Recommendations Guide, Waitlist Guide and more!

Clear Admit Interview Guides
Be as prepared as possible for your MBA interviews this season with the Clear Admit Interview Guides! School-specific sample questions and in-depth strategy, campus visit details and places to stay.

Application Deadlines
Below are the upcoming deadlines for admission to top-tier schools.
Feb 10: INSEAD R3
Mar 1: Michigan / Ross R3
Mar 3: CBS
Mar 3: LBS R3
Mar 4: Kellogg R3
Mar 8: Cambridge / Judge R4
Mar 8: CMU / Tepper R3
Mar 9: Duke / Fuqua R3
Mar 9: Penn / Wharton R3
Mar 10: Berkeley / Hass R4
Mar 10: Chicago Booth R3
Mar 10: Yale SOM R3
Mar 15: NYU / Stern R3
Mar 17: UCLA / Anderson R3
Mar 19: UNC / Kenan-Flagler R4
Mar 30: Cornell / Johnson R4
Mar 31: UVA / Darden R3
Mar 31: INSEAD R4
Apr 1: UT-Austin / McCombs
Apr 2: Dartmouth / Tuck R3
Apr 2: Oxford / Saїd R3
Apr 7: Stanford GSB R4
Apr 8: Harvard R3
Apr 14: CBS

Essay Topic Analysis
Below are links to our comments on some of the top programs' essay topics.
The Career Goals Essay
Berkeley / Haas*
Chicago Booth*
CMU / Tepper*
Columbia*
Cornell / Johnson*
Dartmouth / Tuck*
Duke / Fuqua*
Harvard*
Indian School of Business*
INSEAD*
London Business School*
MIT / Sloan*
Michigan / Ross*
Northwestern / Kellogg*
NYU / Stern*
Oxford / Said*
Penn / Wharton*
Stanford GSB*
UCLA / Anderson*
UNC / Kenan-Flagler*
USC / Marshall*
UT Austin / McCombs*
UVA / Darden*
Yale SOM*
* denotes '09-'10 commentary

Categories
Use categories to access all that has been written on each of the topics. We have categorized by school and by subject matter.

Interview Reports
A selection of interview field reports from fellow applicants posted to the MBA Admissions Wiki. Add your reports when you are finished with your interviews.
Chicago
Columbia
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Harvard
Kellogg
Michigan / Ross
MIT / Sloan
Stanford
UNC / Chapel Hill
Virginia / Darden
Wharton
London Business School

GMAT Resources
MBA.com
Manhattan GMAT
GMAT Club
Princeton Review
Test Prep New York
Kaplan
Beat The GMAT
Knewton

Writing Resources
Guide to Grammar and Writing
The Internet Grammar of English
English Usage, Style and Composition
The Economist Style Guide
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant

School Rankings
Rankings are a good way to start your research on various MBA Programs. Keep in mind each uses a different methodology.
Business Week
Economist
Financial Times
Forbes
USNews
Wall Street Journal

Career Guides
The following resources should be useful to those who want to research the careers open to them after (or before) earning an MBA.
Vault.com
Wetfeet

Business School Resources
The following are business resources offered by a variety of leading Business Schools. It's useful to subscribe to these resources, especially for the schools to which you are applying.

MBA Programs: North America
If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
Berkeley / Haas
Boston College / Carroll
Carnegie Mellon / Tepper
Chicago
Columbia
Concordia
Cornell / Johnson
Dartmouth / Tuck
Duke / Fuqua
Emory / Goizueta
Harvard
HEC Montreal
Indiana / Kelley
Michigan
MIT / Sloan
Northwestern / Kellogg
New York / Stern
North Carolina / Kenan Flagler
Notre Dame / Mendoza
Pennsylvania / Wharton
Queens
Stanford
Syracuse / Whitman
Texas / McCombs
Thunderbird
Toronto
USC / Marshall
UCLA / Anderson
Vanderbilt / Owen
Virginia / Darden
Washington University in St. Louis / Olin
Western Ontario / Ivey
Yale

MBA Programs: Rest of the World
As there is some variety in the length of international MBA programs, we have denoted the length of the program next to its name (1 = one year; 2 = 2 years). If an MBA Program is not listed, please e-mail and we will be happy to list it.
AGSM (Australia) 2
Cambridge / Judge (UK) 1
CIEBS (China) 2
Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (China) 1
Cranfield School of Mgmt (UK) 1
ESADE (Spain) 1 or 2
HEC (France) 2
Hult (UK) 1
IESE (Spain) 2
IMD (Switzerland) 1
INCAE (Costa Rica) 2
INSEAD (France) 1
IPADE (Mexico)
ISB (India) 1
London Business School (UK) 2
Manchester Bus. School (UK) 2
Melbourne (Australia) 2
Oxford / Said (UK) 1
Rotterdam (Netherlands) 1
Tsinghua IMBA (China) 2
University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) 1

Additional Resources
Here we link a host of additional resources available across the web. E-mail info@clearadmit.com to have resources added to this list.
AACSB International
Association of MBAs
Beyond Grey Pinstripes
EFMD
gradschools.com (worldwide)
Infozee
International Student Loans
mba.com (GMAT Scores)
MBAInfo
mbaleague.blogspot.com
MBAzone
MBA Jungle
TOEFL
Top MBA

MBA Tipline
We encourage admissions officers, students and applicants to alert us of interesting news and developments, please send an email to news@clearadmit.com so we can blog it.

Blog Archive

Get a $10 Amazon.com Gift Card! Contribute your MBA interview reports to the Clear Admit Wiki.

Interviewing with b-schools in R2? Download our school by school Interview Guides or send us your CV to learn more about our mock interview services.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

GMAT Tip: “Layering” in Sentence Correction Questions

This week, we have another article from Chris Ryan, Manhattan GMAT’s Director of Instructor and Product Development. This week he tackles “layering” in Sentence Correction questions. Layering is a technique used by a test writer to make a question more difficult.

We all know that the GMAT is a computer adaptive test, and computer adaptive tests give us questions based on the difficulty level that we “earn” as we take the test. How do the test writers at ACT (the organization that writes the GMAT) determine which questions are harder than others?

First, ACT engages in a process called “normalization,” wherein all freshly written questions are tested by actual test takers to determine what percentage answer the questions correctly (we know these questions as “experimental” questions). If too many people answer correctly, the question may need to be toughened up. If too few people answer correctly, the question may need to be dumbed down. ACT is looking to assemble a pool of questions that covers a range of difficulty, from cakewalk to mind-bending, and the test takers help them do so.

How does ACT find these test takers? Easy. Everyone who takes the GMAT will end up answering up to 10 unscored “experimental” math questions and 10 unscored “experimental” verbal questions. These questions are interspersed with the actual, scored questions with no way to identify them as experimental.

Second, the writers at ETS have a general sense of what makes a 50th percentile question, or a 75th percentile question, or a 90th percentile question. Because each test is designed to evaluate proficiency in the same range of topics, the writers have to come up with ways to test the same concepts at different levels of difficulty. That’s where “layering” comes in.

So, in a nutshell, a simple problem is made increasingly complex by adding information to obscure the core issues. In Sentence Correction questions, you are given a sentence in which a portion has been underlined. Your task is to determine whether the underlined portion is correct as it stands or whether it needs to be replaced with one of the answer choices in order to make the sentence grammatical and clear.

For example, let’s consider the following sentence:

The dog are friendly.

It does not take much effort to see that this sentence is flawed: the noun (”dog”) is singular but the verb (”are”) is plural. This would be much too easy for the GMAT, so the test writers must camouflage the error. One simple way to do so is to insert a lot of unnecessary verbiage between the noun and verb. We call this verbiage the “middleman.” For example:

The dog, which was one of two puppies rescued from the shelter, are friendly.

The subject-verb flaw is a little harder to see now, but still fairly apparent on a first read. If we take out the “middleman” (the intervening clause), we are back to the original sentence (”The dog are friendly”). Notice, however, that the writers have inserted a plural noun (”puppies”) in the new clause so that you have plurality on the brain when you read “are friendly.” If you are already thinking in plural terms, you are much less likely to spot the error. Even on a visual level, the subject of the sentence (”dog”) is so far removed from the verb (”are”) that the eye quickly alights on “puppies” as a possible subject for the plural “are.” As tricky as this may already seem, the writers can put yet another kink in the rope:

Two puppies were rescued from the shelter, but neither of them are friendly.

The error in this sentence is significantly less apparent than those in the previous examples, though it is still the same error: subject-verb disagreement. Here the subject is “neither (of them),” which is singular (think of it as “neither one of them”). The verb, however, is still plural (”are”). The saga of the mismatched subject and verb goes on. Can the writers make the problem even harder to spot? Sure! Let’s take a look at the following example:

Neither of the two puppies that were rescued from the shelter are friendly.

If you compare this sentence with the previous examples, the error is almost completely camouflaged. We can see that the subject is “neither (one),” which is singular, but the verb “are” is still plural. The core is simply “neither (one) are friendly.” The test writers have managed to layer enough “junk” into the middle of the sentence to make it very difficult to spot the error. That junk, though, is just extra information about the subject: “Neither (one) <of the two puppies that were rescued from the shelter> are friendly.” Only those who really know the rules backwards and forwards are going to be able to avoid this trap.

We have gone from “The dog are friendly” to “Neither of the two puppies that were rescued from the shelter are friendly” in a few steps, obscuring the central subject-verb issue along the way. Breaking sentences down into their component parts and analyzing their relationships is the key to success in Sentence Correction.

Major take-aways from Chris’s article:

1. When studying, try to figure out how the author “layered” the sentence to make it more difficult. Can you write a simpler version of the sentence (perhaps with only the core information, not everything)? How did the author make this sentence so tricky?

2. If you can split out the core and understand how the different pieces of “extra” info fit into the core, then you won’t be as likely to fall into a trap on a “layered” question. (You still might fall into a trap – but you will have a much better chance of avoiding it!)

For more information on ManhattanGMAT, download Clear Admit’s independent guide to the leading test preparation companies here. This FREE guide includes coupons for discounts on test prep services at ten different firms!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 9:00 am in GMAT - Verbal, GMAT Tips

Friday, March 12, 2010

HBS Admissions Director Advises College Seniors to Consider Applying in Round 3

In a post to her blog yesterday, Harvard Business School (HBS) Admissions Director Dee Leopold gave college seniors some food for thought. “If you are a college senior who wants to go to HBS – but not right away – then applying in Round 3 could be a smart choice,” she wrote.

She then ticked off a list of interesting reasons why it might make sense. For starters, successful applicants will gain deferred admission, which means they will have a guaranteed spot in the class of 2014 after completing two years in the workforce. Second, HBS does not have a target or cap on the number of deferred admit spots it offers. “Last year 43 college seniors were offered deferred admission,” Leopold wrote.

From a purely pragmatic standpoint, there are also a couple of additional reasons for college seniors to consider applying in Round 3, Leopold added. One is a cheaper application fee. Currently enrolled college seniors enjoy a reduced application fee of $100. It also might make sense to take the GMAT/GRE while you’re in college and still in test-taking mode, Leopold offered. GMAT/GRE scores are good for five years, after all.

According to Leopold, there is “no downside” to applying in Round 3 if you are college senior thinking of HBS for a future date. “If you aren’t admitted, apply again in a couple of years – lots of denied college seniors are successful in the future,” she advised.

The Round 3 application deadline for HBS is April 8, 2010. For more information, click here.

0 Comments »

# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:00 pm in Admissions Tips, Deadlines, MBA News, School: Harvard

Fridays From the Frontline

Welcome to the freshest Fridays From the Frontlines! Each week the Clear Admit team takes a ’spin’ around the MBA blogosphere, searching out the newest perspectives and stories. This week, applicants had a few final words about their round two results, and current students shared all sorts of stories and information with their readers.

Nistha expressed an appreciation for a few strong women. Rocky felt that he had three ’strikes’ during his Anderson interview. Dream Chaser reviewed his experience at his Day at Kellogg weekend, and went into detail about his fellow admits. Happy Libran discussed his Wharton hub interview in San Francisco. Steve was moving forward with his waitlist strategy, and asked what others in similar positions were doing. After a few interview invites, but no acceptances, LBiggs considered his next step. Madologue recounted a love story … between herself and Haas. Hari aimed to sell his car and leave the US in four weeks, and, with an acceptance under his belt, asked his readers what he should write about now.

Kellogg ‘11 DG wrote about the importance of ‘a few good mentors.’ BU ‘11 Felish gave newly admitted students a tour, and looked forward to sleeping over spring break. Chicago Booth ‘11 Globthink publicized the upcoming Chicago Booth European Conference. Kellogg ‘11 Orlando chimed in on an email a Stern professor sent to a potential student, which was a mix of humor and harshness. Harvard ‘11 Military to Businss was moments away from a week-long hiking adventure in Brazil, but took a moment to update his readers on his summer internship plans.

Third years were a relatively quiet bunch this week. Harvard ‘10 Gabrielle saw Christian Soriano in the flesh while attending the school’s Retail and Luxury Goods Conference. Darden ‘10 JulyDream took an 18 hour trip to see an iron ore mine, an ice hotel and reindeer farm. Ronjon went through the recruiting process successfully, even after originally deciding not to.

And that sums up this sensational week’s worth of b-school business. We hope that any round three applicants are feeling good about their submissions, and that current students have locked down their summer internships or full-time job plans. Until next week, have a wonderful weekend!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in Fridays from the Frontline

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Twitter Thursdays: News from MBA Programs

Welcome to another installment of Twitter Thursdays, a weekly column in which we highlight the updates of the top MBA programs on Twitter! If you’re not following Clear Admit already, be sure to check us out on Twitter for updates, special prizes, admissions tips and breaking news. We’ve also created a list of MBA programs to ease your daily access to breaking news from the top MBA programs, as reported by admissions committee members themselves.

Though applicants are eager for news, The Assistant Dean of UCLA Anderson MBA Admissions & Financial Aid, Mae Jennifer Shores, noted that she can only promise Round 2 decisions will be released by March 31st. Students and faculty at Berkeley / Haas ensured that Rich Lyons, the Dean of the Haas School of Business, had a full week; he received student support for a place in the dunk-tank and the faculty’s approval for the school’s new strategic plan. Across the pond, MBA Admissions Coordinator at Judge Business School, James Barker, hosted several Round 3 candidates for Cambridge’s interview days. Associate Dean for Student Recruitment and Admissions at Chicago Booth, Rose Martinelli, has yet to determine how the PowerPoint presentation will play a part in next year’s application – if it does at all.

After hosting admitted students this past weekend, Chicago Booth reached the Round 3 deadline. Student teams at The Tuck School topped a few MBA competitions in modern business. The Wharton School plugged professors’ publications and research to spread the word on Google, healthcare in India and the state of the U.S. economy. The Kellogg School of Management shared its faculty’s research on executive compensation and hedge fund regulation.

Thanks for tuning into Twitter Thursdays this week! If you’re on Twitter, let us know; e-mail wiki@clearadmit.com with your user name and status as an MBA applicant, student or admissions officer so we can add you to the appropriate Twitter list. Happy updating and we’ll see you next week with some more “tweets!”

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:41 pm in Twitter Thursdays

More Europeans Taking GMAT, Having Scores Sent to European Business Schools

The number of European citizens taking the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) rising rapidly and a growing number of these test takers are having their scores sent to management education programs in Europe, according to recent research from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which owns the GMAT.

According to GMAC, increased test taking activity in Europe is part of surge in interest in MBA and other graduate management education programs worldwide. During the 2009 testing year, which runs from July 1st to June 30th, global GMAT testing volume reached an all-time high of 265,613. Of these test takers, for the first time ever this year more than half were non-U.S. citizens. Overall, test taking volume is up 32 percent since 2004. In Europe specifically, it has grown by 30 percent during the same time period.

The recent analysis of test taking volume also revealed new trends in where test takers are sending their scores. Almost 10 percent of GMAT score reports sent globally in testing year 2009 went to programs located in 10 European countries, up from 6.9 percent of scores sent five years earlier. Of these 10 European countries, the United Kingdom and France received the most number of score reports.

“More and more Europeans are recognizing that high-quality management education is available in their own back yard,” Julia Tyler, GMAC marketing executive, said in a statement.

GMAC researchers have found that European citizens are sending a significantly smaller share of their GMAT score reports to programs in the United States and instead sending them to programs in Europe, particularly to British, French, Dutch and Spanish business schools. According to GMAC’s data, the most popular European MBA programs among European citizens in 2009 were those at INSEAD, London Business School and IESE Business School.

For more details on trends in GMAT testing and score sending, click here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:00 pm in GMAT News, School: IESE, School: INSEAD, School: London Business School

Campus Chronicles: Cornell Business

Welcome back to Campus Chronicles! This week we’ll take a look at Cornell Johnson’s student newspaper, the Cornell Business, to see what’s been going on for b-school students at the Johnson campus.

Sixteen Johnson students recently returned from the 2009-2010 India Trek, in which they were tasked with completing a consulting project alongside local MBA students from Somaiya’s Institute of Management Studies and Research in Mumbai. Students divided into groups and worked on different projects, including consulting with a bio-diesel company, a university on its strategic plan, and an entrepreneur/inventor on his new exercise machine. In addition, students were able to visit local companies in fields such as bio-tech, venture capital, private equity investment, and pharmaceutics, ultimately meeting with the Governor or the Reserve Bank of India with whom they discussed India’s financial situation. The students also traveled to Bangalore, the Indian information technology hub, where they visited the IM-Bangalore campus, an IT firm, a silk factory, a tractor factory, and the hospital that performs the greatest number of heart operations throughout the world. During their free time, the students enjoyed riding in tuk-tuks, visiting the beaches of Goa, seeing the Taj Mahal.

Meanwhile, other Johnson students spent their winter break on the Hong Kong Trek, where the focus was finding internships and networking for post-grad job opportunities. On the week-long trip, students had the chance to visit 16 companies, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citi, Nomura (formerly Lehman), Bain, and other banks, buy-side firms, consulting firms, and private equity shops. During these visits, students had the chance to attend information sessions, and there was also the occasional on-the-spot job interview invite. Students also had the chance to meet with Johnson graduates based on Hong Kong during a planned social event.

India or Hong Kong – which Trek interests you most? Feel free to comment below!

1 Comment »

# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in Campus Chronicles, School: Cornell / Johnson

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

GMAT Tip: The Importance of Prime Factorization on the GMAT

Today’s GMAT tip comes from our friends at test prep firm Knewton. Today, they offer some advice on prime factorization:

Rich Zwelling is a stellar teacher in Knewton’s GMAT course. And it’s true: He really does love prime factorization.

Prime Factorization: My single favorite topic on the GMAT. No contest.

My passionate (some would say evangelical!) advocacy of prime factorization results not only from my finding prime numbers so inherently fascinating in and of themselves, but also from the plain and simple truth that prime factorization proves surprisingly useful on questions on which prime numbers aren’t even mentioned.

For example, any time you’re given a question asking about multiples and factors, you can bet that prime factorization will help you get to the answer quicker.

Case in point — this Data Sufficiency question from the Official GMAT Guide:

If positive integer x is a multiple of 6 and positive integer y is a multiple of 14, is xy a multiple of 105?

(1) x is a multiple of 9

(2) x is a multiple of 25

Notice, no mention of prime numbers at all. But take any other approach to this problem, and you’re likely to get pretty frustrated and lost rather quickly. You could certainly test numbers, but good luck taking only two minutes finding values that work for every case!

Now, I’m going to re-write the question and statements using only prime factorizations:

If positive integer x is a multiple of 2*3 and positive integer y is a multiple of 2*7, is xy a multiple of 3*5*7?

(1) x is a multiple of 3*3

(2) x is a multiple of 5*5

All of a sudden, the question becomes much more manageable. We know that x carries at least one 2 and one 3 as factors. We also know that y carries at least one 2 and one 7 as factors. Therefore, the product xy must carry at least two 2s, one 3, and one 7.

We are asked if xy carries at least one 3, one 5, and one 7 as factors. So far, we know xy has one 3 and one 7, so all that’s missing is the one 5. What we’ve just done is show that in order to establish sufficiency, all we need to do is determine whether there’s a factor of 5 somewhere in x or y (or both).

Statement 1 lets us know that x has two 3s and mentions nothing of 5s. But that doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a 5 there. There also might be a factor of 5 in y. Because we cannot determine the presence or absence of factors of 5, this statement is insufficient.

Statement 2, on the other hand, lets us know that x definitely has a factor of 5. And again, we already know from the prompt that x has a factor of 3 and y has a factor of 7. Therefore, the product xy has at least one 3, one 5, and one 7 as factors, and we can conclude unequivocally that xy is a multiple of 3*5*7 = 105. Sufficient.

Final answer: B

Even on questions that do explicitly mention prime numbers, things can get really ugly really quickly if you don’t use prime factorization.

For example, take this Problem Solving question, also from the Official Guide (answer choices not included):

In a certain game, a large container is filled with red, yellow, green, and blue beads worth, respectively, 7, 5, 3, and 2 points each. A number of beads are then removed from the container. If the product of the point values of the removed beads is 147,000, how many red beads were removed?

The use of 2, 3, 5, and 7 is a prime clue (pun very much intended). You might look at 147,000 and panic because the number is so large. But let’s break down 147,000 into its prime factorization:

147,000

= 147 * 1000

= (7 * 21) * 10 * 10 * 10

= (7 * 7 * 3) * (2*5) * (2*5) * (2*5)

Now, the question asks us how many red beads were removed. Red beads are associated with a point value of 7.

We know that the final point total was 147,000, and when we broke that number down, we found that there were only two factors of 7. Therefore, the only way we could get that score is if we removed 2 red beads. That’s it! 2 is our final answer!

These are just two examples of a large number of questions made easier by prime-factor prowess. Practice making those factor trees! And notice how prime numbers help you answer questions about other topics like Greatest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple.

For more information on Knewton, download Clear Admit’s independent guide to the leading test preparation companies here. This FREE guide includes coupons for discounts on test prep services at ten different firms!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 8:00 pm in GMAT - Quantitative, GMAT Tips

‘March Interview Madness:’ Submit a Report for Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, NYU / Stern or Wharton to Win an Amazon.com Gift Card!

Welcome to Wiki Wednesdays, in which we pull samples from the latest interview reports added to the Clear Admit Wiki, an online repository for MBA applicants to share their experiences with admissions interviews. We’ve received a number of great interview reports this past week, namely for: INSEAD, Northwestern / Kellogg, London Business School, UVA / Darden and Yale School of Management. We’d like to thank everyone for continuing to share their experiences in the Clear Admit Wiki!

Before getting into contest details, let’s take look at a couple of the newest reports. An accepted applicant to INSEAD shared the following questions from an alumnus:

Why entrepreneurship? Do you think INSEAD will make an entrepreneur out of you?
Is [your] wife ready to move from US to France?
Why did [you] join [your] current company? Why US, Singapore and India?
[Describe your] proposed venture – its business model, how to raise capital, its market segment, how much energy, what kind of source for energy.
Why INSEAD? Why not some other school, like MIT or Kennedy School if [you] want to work in alternate energy?

A Round 2 applicant to London Business School shared the following questions, as posed by an alumnus:

Imagine the world without an MBA. What would you do?
If you can achieve your goals without an MBA why do you want to get an MBA?
How would you contribute to your study group at LBS from a professional point of view?
What will be your personal development after arriving at LBS?
Imagine that some people in your study group are not contributing enough and your talk to them didn’t help. What would you do next? How would you handle it? How would you feel?

Thank you to everyone who has shared their interview experiences this season and helped fellow applicants! If you’re eager to contribute, we’ll be awarding a $10 Amazon gift certificate to applicants that submit interview reports for Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, NYU / Stern or Wharton through next Tuesday, March 16th! In other words, all you have to do is send us your interview field report for the selected schools for inclusion in the Wiki and we’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift certificate. You must send your interview report to wiki@clearadmit.com to be eligible; we’ll post it to the Wiki and notify the winners by e-mail (Limit: one gift card per person).

The most helpful and informative reports usually include the following information:

Date/Admissions Round
Description of visit and/or interview atmosphere
Type of interview (alum vs. adcom, blind vs. application-based)
List of interview questions
Commentary (What did you think of the interview? What surprised you? What didn’t surprise you? What might you conclude about the school based on this experience?)

Applicants who would like to supplement the information available on the Wiki can check out our Clear Admit Interview Guides, which provide school-specific insight about admissions interviews. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Clear Admit Wiki and helped fellow applicants prepare for MBA admissions interviews this season!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:19 pm in School: Columbia, School: Harvard, School: INSEAD, School: NYU Stern, School: Penn / Wharton, Wiki Wednesdays

Chicago Booth Won’t Necessarily Scrap PowerPoint Component of Application, Admissions Director Says

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business is currently planning next year’s application, including considering changing or eliminating the PowerPoint presentation requirement that has been one of the school’s application components for the past several years, according to Admissions Director Rose Martinelli.

In a post to her blog yesterday, Martinelli sought to clarify certain points made in a BusinessWeek article earlier this week entitled “Business Schools Revamp the Application.” The BW article cited Chicago Booth and UCLA Anderson as leaders among top business schools that are embracing new technology as part of their application process, noting Chicago Booth’s PowerPoint component and Anderson’s invitation to candidates to answer one essay question in audio or video format. But it went on to report that Chicago Booth had decided to eliminate the PowerPoint presentations starting with the 2010-11 academic year because they didn’t work.

“While the article covered the spirit of my conversation, it unfortunately missed providing the context,” Martinelli wrote on her blog. The BW article suggested that Chicago Booth planned to nix the PowerPoint slides because they didn’t help the admissions committee determine how well a candidate would fit the Booth culture. On the contrary, Martinelli wrote on her blog. “The PowerPoint presentation has been incredibly successful in our evaluation process in identifying students who are great fit and match for Chicago,” she wrote.

Over time, though – as candidates and consultants have become more familiar with the exercise – her office has begun to see more presentations that felt standard or rote, she continued. As it begins to design next year’s application, her team is considering each individual component, but the PowerPoint has not necessarily been eliminated, Martinelli says. “While this may be the last year of the presentation requirement in its current form, we have not yet made any final decisions as to what next year’s application will look like,” she wrote.

Of course, those of us here at Clear Admit will stay on top of the developments in Chicago Booth’s application and update our readers here as soon as any official changes are released.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:00 pm in MBA News, School: Chicago, School: UCLA / Anderson

How Long is Just Right?

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in Poll

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

MBA Students Are Finding More Banking Jobs, Internships This Year, NYT Reports

Business school students with their sights set on investment banking careers are landing internships and jobs in greater numbers as banks climb out of the recession, according to a recent article in the New York Times.

Drawing on interviews with dozens of students and administrators at business schools across the country, as well as a December survey by the MBA Career Services Council, the Times on Sunday reported that the job market in the banking sector is stabilizing.

“The banks this year kept saying, ‘It’s a good year,’ ‘We just approved a lot of hiring,’ ‘The market is clearing up,’ ” Kwame Yankson, a second-year MBA student at the University of Virginia’s Darden School, told the Times. Yankson, who was turned down for summer internships by 15 banks last year, received a full-time offer from Wells Fargo when he conducted his job search this year. “It was a completely different experience,” he said.

Indeed, Darden told the Times that the number of banks interviewing on campus increased 20 percent this year over last, and job offers are up 33 percent so far.

At Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, the reports were also encouraging. According to that school’s career office, twice as many students had lined up investment banking internships last month than the year before, and four new banks came to interview.

Student interest in banking is likewise rebounding at Fuqua, the Times reported. The number of students submitting resumes to banks was up 37 percent, and the number of students participating in the school’s Week on Wall Street was up to 90 this year, from 60 last year.

“There’s reason for students to be optimistic,” Tracy Handler, a spokeswoman for the M.B.A. Career Services Council, told the Times. The council, an association of business school career advisers, conducted a survey of its members in December to gauge students’ internship prospects. The findings: 39 percent of business schools expected internship opportunities to increase this summer, while 26 percent expected them to decrease.

“Any signs of recovery are modest,” Handler told the Times. “But business schools are looking ahead and seeing a light at the end of what is now a pretty short tunnel.

For the full story, click here.

Are you considering a career in investment banking? Check out Clear Admit’s Investment Banking Career Guide for comprehensive profiles about investment banking programs at each of the leading business schools.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:00 pm in MBA News, School: Duke / Fuqua, School: Virginia / Darden, Uncategorized

Trivia Tuesday: Global Management at the Stanford GSB

Welcome back to Trivia Tuesday! As our regular readers know, Trivia Tuesday is our weekly examination of the programs and policies, details and distinctions of the leading business schools. Today we turn our attention to Stanford’s Global Management Program.

Established by students and faculty in 1994, the Global Management Program (GMP) is the student-facing arm of the Center for Global Business and the Economy. Complementing the faculty research that the center facilitates, the GMP offers both academic and experiential opportunities for students interested in global management.

The Global Management Immersion Experience (GMIX) is a month-long internship that takes place at the end of the summer following a student’s first year, usually after a longer traditional internship. Following the international experience itself, students complete a research project and compose a paper on a topic related to their internship, earning two units of credit. Also worth two units of credit, the Stanford-Tsinghua Exchange Program (STEP) is less intense but longer-term. Stanford GSB students participating in the program are paired with an MBA student at the Tsinghua University School of Economics. The two work together throughout the academic year on a research project of mutual interest, and each take a week-long trip to the other campus for a visit focused not just on academics, but also on visits to local businesses as well as social and cultural activities.

Students interested in the Global Management Program can also take advantage of Global Study Trips and community-wide events, such as the Global Speaker Series and Conferences.

For more information on Stanford’s specialized academic programs, be sure to check out the Clear Admit School Guide to Stanford!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in School Guides, School: Stanford, Trivia Tuesday

Monday, March 08, 2010

Rival Portuguese Business Schools Partner to Offer Joint MBA Program with MIT Sloan

Two of Portugal’s six business schools have joined forces through a partnership with MIT’s Sloan School of Management to create a new Lisbon MBA program with a focus on teaching interpersonal skills as part of the curriculum, the Financial Times reports.

Lisbon’s Universidade Nova and Universidade Católica, generally rivals, have joined together in cooperative competition in the interest of building recognition of Portugal as a center for excellence in business education, according to the FT.

“I think the programme will have a wide impact on business education in Portugal,” José Ferreira Machado, dean of the economics faculty at Nova, told the FT. “Achieving international distinction in an area like business education does wonders for the image of the country as a whole.”

As part of the new one-year, English-language MBA program, students spend a month in Boston at MIT Sloan, attending innovation and entrepreneurship courses. Sloan professors will also visit Portugal, and Lisbon faculty members will undertake research in the United States.

Beyond making partners out of rival universities, the program sets itself apart through its focus on teaching soft skills, says Belén de Vicente, the course’s executive director. “We determined from the outset to focus on interpersonal skills in a different and more holistic way,” she told the FT. “The way a job candidate has learned to lead, communicate and manage conflicts can make a fundamental difference between two people with an otherwise similar education.”

To develop these so-called soft skills, the program includes weekly, all-day “Friday Forums” during which students take part in hands-on experiences, such as devising a perfume marketing campaign or learning the art of writing and singing traditional Portuguese folk music from professional singers, according to the FT report.

The Lisbon MBA, which starts in January, is now in its second year. In each of its first two years, the program attracted 32 students, more than 40 per cent of them women. The number of overseas students grew from 25 percent in the first year to 38 percent this year. The goal is to increase class size to a maximum of 50 in the medium term and to achieve a 50-50 balance between the sexes as well as between Portuguese students and students from overseas.

With fewer than 100 core faculty members between them, Cátolica and Nova still lack international brand awareness and critical mass, but with the new Lisbon MBA they are gaining ground. Indeed, the two schools have achieved the “triple crown” of accreditation by the international bodies AACSB, Equis and Amba. “We have advanced from playing the game to helping define the rules,” Fátima Barros, dean of the Católica economics faculty, told the FT.

To learn more about the new Lisbon MBA, click here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:00 pm in MBA News, School: MIT / Sloan

Admissions Tip: Extracurricular Activities

Because it’s the time of year when applicants aiming for Fall 2010 intake are just beginning to think about the admissions process, we wanted to focus today on one element of the application that candidates often underestimate: extracurricular activities.

In order to understand why this category is important, candidates should keep in mind that the adcom is responsible for crafting a dynamic class each year. The aim is to admit individuals who will support a vibrant campus community and step into leadership positions. In other words, as admissions officers consider each applicant, they ask themselves “what’s in it for our school?” An applicant who has previously demonstrated a talent for writing, for example, by contributing to a non-profit’s newsletter, will really catch the adcom’s attention if she also expresses her intent to contribute to a specific publication on campus.

Volunteering is of course a great way to expand one’s extracurricular involvement. However, many applicants participate in the occasional fundraising walk or an annual corporate outreach day; those who demonstrate ongoing involvement in one cause or organization will be of special interest to the admissions committee, especially if it is related to their current or future career. A candidate who has contributed over a longer period is likely to have developed his or her responsibilities beyond ladling soup or stuffing envelopes. What’s more, this can be a particularly important opportunity for applicants who are currently living and working outside of their home countries; for example, an Indian applicant who works and volunteers in Africa will stand out as being particularly engaged and well-adapted to his or her foreign environment.

Candidates who are older or younger than the average applicant should recognize that their extracurricular involvement is particularly important. A younger applicant who lacks leadership responsibilities at work might demonstrate his talent for motivating others outside of the office. Meanwhile, older applicants can use their extracurricular involvement to reassure the adcom that, despite family responsibilities or distance in age from one’s classmates, the broader life of the community remains important to them.

Lastly, applicants will have a much easier time writing their application essays if they have a variety of experiences from which to draw. While applicants can certainly respond to most essay prompts by reflecting on their professional experiences, relying exclusively on one’s work is a mistake. With each essay, the applicant should aim to share a different side of him or herself – submitting five essays about electrical engineering or investment banking is not the most effective way to do this.

We hope that this sheds some light on the opportunities and value that activities outside of work provide with respect to one’s b-school candidacy and applications. Should you find that area of your application lacking upon reflection, the good news is that there’s still plenty of time to address this before the deadlines. Whether that means volunteering your professional services to a local non-profit, joining a community mentoring organization or brushing up on your competitive square dancing, Class of 2012 aspirants should aim to make this an especially active and productive spring and summer!

Interested in a free assessment of your candidacy? Feel free to send your CV or resume to info@clearadmit.com.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in Admissions Tips, General

Saturday, March 06, 2010

GMAT Tip: Think Like the Testmaker Series, Volume 9

Today’s GMAT tip comes from our friends at Veritas Prep. In today’s article, they present the ninth installment of their “Think Like the Testmaker Series”:

Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company’s GMAT prep courses.

Though they’ll never admit to using “dirty tricks” to keep your score down, the authors of the GMAT can be shrewd in the way that they word questions to prey on the inefficiencies of human nature. Previously in this space, we talked about the “Simon Says” nature of Data Sufficiency questions, in which the authors know that you will often make assumptions about variables – that they’re integers, or positive – without being explicitly told so. Data Sufficiency questions contain another, perhaps even more devilish, example of this need for perfect precision, embedded deeply in the way that these questions are written. Consider this fragment of a GMAT question:

Is x <0?

(1) x² < x

Statement 1 tells us that x must be a positive number between 0 and 1: 0 < x < 1. More importantly to our purposes, statement 1 explicitly precludes all negative numbers as potential values for x. Any negative value of x, when squared, will become positive, meaning that x² cannot be less than a negative value of x. Accordingly, statement 1 tells us, emphatically, “NO” to the initial question, is x less than zero.

As human beings, we’re wired to take such an answer – “NO” – and eliminate statement one; “no” means “eliminate” in nearly all facets of our lives. But, much like a medical diagnosis, “negative” in this case is a positive thing. The fact that we get the definitive answer “NO” means that statement 1 did its job – it answered the question.

Look at just one of the Data Sufficiency answer choices:

A) Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) alone is not sufficient

The answer choices are precisely written for their purpose. Your job is to determine when you have enough information (when is the data sufficient?) to answer the overall question – NOT necessarily whether the answer is “yes”. The answer “no” to the question is, indeed, a definite answer, so the statement above, which provides that conclusive answer “no” is SUFFICIENT, and therefore we cannot eliminate answer choice A.

Remember that, on Data Sufficiency questions in particular, the authors of the exam play to the inefficiencies in the way that we think. Be sure to recognize that you’re prone to confusing “No” with “Insufficient”, and be ready to combat that. You may, for example, want to write the word “SUFFICIENT” at the top of your noteboard, just to remind yourself that your job on these questions is to test for sufficiency, and not for “correctness” (or any other term that would indicate “is the answer yes?”. Just like a negative diagnosis is a positive thing, so the answer “no” is sufficient for your purposes on test day. (And, think about it, if your doctor ever says “maybe”, well, that may be the worst answer of all..)

For more information on Veritas Prep, download Clear Admit’s independent guide to the leading test preparation companies here. This FREE guide includes coupons for discounts on test prep services at ten different firms!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 9:00 am in GMAT - Quantitative, GMAT Tips

Friday, March 05, 2010

MBA Oath Initiative Grows as Global Organizations Lend Support

Support for a professional oath of honor for business graduates grew even more Monday when the Oath Project announced a new alliance with the United Nations Global Compact and the Principles for Responsible Management Education in support of the cause.

The initiative to establish an MBA oath similar to the Hippocratic oath doctors take before practicing medicine has been gaining steam over the past few years. Thunderbird School of Global Management adopted an oath in 2005, a group of Harvard Business School students launched a grassroots effort, MBAOath.org, in 2008, and the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders put forth a Global Business Oath at the recent annual Davos forum in January.

To coordinate these various efforts into one voice, Thunderbird President Ángel Cabrera and Harvard business professors Rakesh Khurana, Rob Kaplan and Nitin Nohria established the Oath Project. Earlier this week, the UN Global Compact, a leadership initiative founded in 2000 for companies committed to sustainability and responsible business practices, and the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Management Education, a platform promoting responsible management education supported by almost 300 business schools, announced that they have joined the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders, the MBA Oath, the Aspen Institute and the Association of Professionals in Business Management as founding partners of the Oath Project.

“The Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative endorses the Oath because it could become a fitting tool to place at the core of management education the values of sustainability and good corporate citizenship,” Manuel Escudero, head of the PRME Secretariat, said in a statement. He added that both the PRME and the Oath reflect an urgent global need for leaders who commit to serving society in their roles as business managers.

Georg Kell, executive director of the UN Global Compact, pledged his support as well. “The Oath Project represents a critical effort to embed management education and training in a broader context of business ethics,” he said.

Thunderbird’s Cabrera, one of the first vocal proponents for an MBA Oath, pointed to the global financial crisis as an indicator of the responsibility business leaders hold in society at large. “Managers are entrusted with incredible power to create or destroy value, and in so doing, affect the lives of thousands if not millions of people,” he said. “This is a power that should not be taken lightly and, as with medical or legal professionals, requires professional standards and ethics that govern its use,” he continued.

The Oath Project, with its growing roster of founding partners, hopes to serve as a hub to support the work of the individuals and organizations that have already been working to promote the concept of an MBA oath. The leaders of the Oath Project believe that for the project to succeed, the management education community needs to come to consensus around a single oath for all to share.

For more on the Oath Project, click here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:00 pm in General, MBA News

Fridays From the Frontline

Welcome back to the newest installment of Fridays From the Frontline! Clear Admit’s weekly wander through the wacky world of the MBA blogosphere. This week applicants and students alike were a bit more quiet, but still had a number of experiences to share with their readers.

Steve became increasingly frustrated with the Cornell waitilist process, but thought things might get better once Round 3 invites are sent out. A Beautiful Mind received his acceptance packet from Olin, and looked forward to reading every word. XLick noted that MBA bloggers weren’t posting as frequently, and couldn’t believe that his ten year high school reunion was just around the corner. Nistha enjoyed attending the MBA Media and Entertainment Conference in spite of all the snow. Braveheart vacationed in Goa and congratulated a friend who heard good news from Chicago Booth and ISB. AJ acknowledged the part money will play in her choice of MBA program. Hari found that many readers were asking the same sorts of questions, so he decided to post his responses, many of which focused on the GMAT. Rocky hoped to gain a little sales experience before starting his MBA.

Kellogg ‘11 Orlando focused on public speaking at the school. BU ‘11 Felish asked for good luck wishes for her mid-terms, hopefully she got them. Kellogg ‘11 Shobhit was understandably inspired by a student-led forum about military leadership. Kellogg ‘11 DG thought about particular ways to make a future startup company a success.

Harvard ‘10 Gabrielle thanked those who have linked to her blog over the last few months, including Clear Admit! Darden ‘10 JulyDream couldn’t help but want to go to two Swedish grocery stores. McCombs ‘10 Metal seemed to be planning to attend a lecture by by one of the school’s professors.

And that wraps up this week’s look-see into the lives of b-school bloggers. We hope that aspirants are enjoying being done with their applications, and that good news comes their way. And to current students we wish your mid-term exams go well, adn that warm weather fortifies your spirits! Until next week, have a wonderful weekend!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:00 am in Fridays from the Frontline

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Twitter Thursdays: News from MBA Programs

The Assistant Dean of UCLA Anderson MBA Admissions & Financial Aid, Mae Jennifer Shores, is still enjoying the audio and visual application essays while still sending out Round 2 interview invitations. Also in California, Rich Lyons, the Dean of the Haas School of Business, announced that the business school will collaborate with the Berkeley College of Environmental Design to develop a “Design and Innovation Lab.” Across the pond, MBA Admissions Coordinator at Judge Business School, James Barker, hosted several Round 3 candidates for the “largest Cambridge MBA interview day” of the admissions year to date. Jon Fuller, the Senior Associate Director of Admissions at the Ross School of Business, headed to St. Louis for a meeting with the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management.

Chicago Booth hosted another Live Chat with Associate Dean Rose Martinelli and the admissions committee about the Booth admissions process and the 2010 application for Round 3. The Johnson School’s Professor Alan McAdams, who just turned 80, announced his retirement at close of 50 years on Johnson School faculty. Professors at The Wharton School plugged panels and conferences to spread the word on clean technology and business language. The Kellogg School of Management shared its faculty’s research on planning pensions and transforming the way movies are traded.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 3:29 pm in Twitter, Twitter Thursdays

Yale School of Management New Campus Plan Wins City Support

Earlier this week, the City of New Haven approved proposed zoning changes that will allow the Yale School of Management (SOM) to move forward with construction of a new 230,000-square-foot building to house the business school. Pending approval of site plans from the City Plan Commission, construction is slated to begin by the end of 2010, and internal demolition of current buildings on the site is already underway.

The New Haven Board of Aldermen showed overwhelming support for the proposal, citing the positive impact the project will have on the city during the construction phase and the support the project has from many residents in the surrounding neighborhood. The SOM student body is also expected to increase once the new facility is built, providing additional positive economic impact for New Haven. The vote in favor of the necessary zoning changes was 25 to 1.

“Twenty-five to one is a great outcome,” said Michael Morand, Yale’s associate vice president for New Haven and state affairs, speaking after the meeting to a group of construction workers eager for the jobs the project will bring, according to a report in the Yale Daily News. Morand added that fundraising for the new campus is well underway and does not pose a problem for the projected schedule. Internal demolition of the buildings currently on the site has already begun.

In other Yale SOM news, the Class of 2011 raised a record-setting $37,000 in pledges toward the Internship Fund, which helps provide stipends to students who choose to complete their summer internships in the nonprofit and public sectors. With pledges from 100 percent of the class, this year’s fundraising represents a significant increase over the $22,000 raised last year, and the full participation of the class triggered a $25,000 gift from the Dean’s Office.

To learn more about the Yale SOM Internship Fund, click here.

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 1:00 pm in MBA News, School: Yale

Campus Chronicles: The Wharton Journal

In this week’s Campus Chronicles post, we’ll review Wharton’s student newspaper, The Wharton Journal, to see exciting events have been happening for b-school students on campus.

Students recently went on the India Global Immersion Program (GIP), visiting various companies including the Bharti group, and speaking with business and government leaders, such as the Chairman of the Goa Port. In doing so, Wharton students had the unique opportunity to learn about the business environment firsthand. The India GIP also offered students the opportunity to learn about India’s cultural offerings, as the trip including visits to several cities, including Bombay, Bangalore and Delhi.

Wharton students also recently embarked on the 8th annual Caribbean conference and trek. Organized by the Caribbean Business Clubs at Wharton and Harvard, students and graduates from NYU Stern, Chicago, Duke, and Howard traveled to Jamaica, where they first learned from local professionals about the foreign MBA experience. After attending a welcome cocktails event, which including a speech from Jamaica’s Prime Minster, students spend the next day and a half attending panels about localized entrepreneurship, the financial crises, and regional integration. Students also had the chance to relax and enjoy their surroundings, playing beach soccer, jet skiing, cliff diving, and laying out on the beach.

The Secretary General of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, Carlos Roberto Osorio, recently spoke at Wharton, discussing the process of Rio de Janeiro’s successful bid for the 2016 Olympic Summer Games. Osorio discussed how Brazil won out over Chicago, Madrid, and Tokyo, which were perceived as “further developed,” as his country campaigned aggressively for the 2016 games, after losing the bid for 2004 and 2012. Osorio noted that the Olympics have never been held in South America, making this an unprecedented opportunity for growth in the city, country, and continent.

Do the India GIP or Caribbean trek interest you? What Wharton-sponsored trips would you want to take? Feel free to comment below!

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# posted by Clear Admit @ 2:47 am in Campus Chronicles, School: Penn / Wharton

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